Dragon School: Dust of Death

by Wilson, Sarah K. L.

  Twice dead, she rises.

  Her rising a sign of salvation.

  Favor from the heavens.

  Relief from the fires of hell.

  Raolcan quoted the ancient prophecy as we dodged and spun, always getting closer to the gaping window.

  Let’s show them a little favor from the heavens, shall we?

  And then we were darting through the window head first and I was clutching his neck, pressing my cheek to it to make myself small so we could fit. We were here to stop Iskaris and if I had to die to do that, I would. I had seen the evil in his heart.

  I gritted my teeth as it occurred to me that he might have captured Leng. Being at the mercy of Iskaris was one of the worst things I could imagine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  RAOLCAN’S SPEED SLOWED and he wriggled through the tightest part of the window before tumbling forward. I waited until we’d stopped moving before I looked up, still gasping to fill my lungs after that tight compression.

  We were in the audience hall. And we were not alone.

  I’d never seen so many Magikas in my life. My breath caught in my throat as I saw them, row upon row, their rune-bedecked robes fluttering in the wind of our passage. I could almost feel every hair of my body rise at the sight of them.

  The ceiling of the room soared upward – three Raolcan’s high – and was bedecked with hanging chandeliers, the lanterns and candles hanging from them lit despite the daylight.

  The walls of the chambers were hung with tapestry after tapestry that looked so foreign that I gasped. The symbol of the Dusk Covenant – a diagonal slash through a spiral – was everywhere and the scenes in the tapestries were of Ifrits, fire, and death. But a tapestry wasn’t made in a day – much less a dozen of them. How long had artisans labored over such a grizzly craft? And who had employed them? Wasn’t Leedris Savette’s family? How could this have been done in their Castel without their knowledge?

  And what would make you assume that they are good?

  They were loyal to the Dominar – to Shonan.

  Or so it was thought. Sometimes, friends deceive.

  At the end of the room, on a raised dais, the Dominar sat on a steel chair, his mask gleaming in the light of a hundred lanterns. He stood abruptly, but it wasn’t him who had my attention. I knew what treacherous scum he was. I knew we needed to rip that mask off his face and return it to our rightful ruler.

  It was the figure beside him, hands and feet lashed to an “X” of wooden beams who caught my attention. Someone had thrown a hood over that person’s head. Strung across the wooden cross with a swath of cloth thrown over him like a curtain, his identity was impossible to discern.

  Leng? I hoped not with all my heart but somehow my lungs just weren’t working right anymore and my faulty heart was stuttering in my chest. My hands gripped and twisted at the saddle under me while Raolcan shifted back and forth. Could he read the prisoner’s thoughts?

  I’m not finding anything. He must be unconscious.

  Behind us, Ahlskibi pushed through the narrow window, struggling to pull his bulk through. He was bigger than Raolcan and I heard him snarl as a stone knocked loose from the masonry and crashed to the ground.

  “An audience,” the Dominar said, stilling the whispers of the crowd. “I like audiences. And this one, while few, makes up for it in sheer size.”

  There was a tittering from some of the nobles at the front of the crowd. They must be starved for humor.

  Or just plain starved. Iskaris is not a kind master.

  Iskaris sounded as though he were smiling behind that mask, but I wasn’t fooled. Iskaris didn’t smile.

  “You didn’t like having an audience on that platform in the warrens,” I said.

  My voice sounded too high pitched. I could feel the tremble in my throat as I spoke. I had watched a city burn because I didn’t have the foresight to prevent it. I’d watched an evil man become a ruler for the same reason. I wasn’t willing to let him do whatever evil thing he was planning now. He needed to remember that he was nothing but a traitor. I needed to remind him.

  “We’ve found a traitor among us,” he said, as if he could hear the chant of ‘traitor, traitor, traitor,’ in my thoughts.

  “We certainly have,” I agreed. It was only when I heard the gasp that I realized what the Magikas were seeing – I, a fledgling Dragon Rider, was speaking like an equal to the Dominar. But he wasn’t my Dominar and I didn’t buy this idea that the mask was the man. The man only wore the mask, and this one wore it poorly. A mask like that could never be taken in treachery, it could only be received in self-sacrifice.

  Ahlskibi moved to tuck in beside Roalcan where they could defend each other if attacked. The crowd shifted at his movement.

  “And now we are deciding what to do with this traitor. And here I find a Dragon Rider, at the perfect time, has joined us. Your color is purple – the color of truth. Tell me, Dragon Rider and tell me true – what should be done to a traitor of the land, hmm?”

  Was he asking what I should do to him? Or to whatever poor soul was under that sheet? I knew I should say something moderate – what if that was Leng? But it was hard not to answer him directly.

  “Any traitor should see with his own eyes the destruction he has caused,” I said. “He should have to make a recompense for his crimes to every person he has hurt. He should hear from them what he has done.”

  “An excellent verdict.”

  There was a murmur of approval around me, but I felt like someone had lined my seat with pins and needles. There was a catch here. I could feel it coming. This was no ordinary person under the cloth and Iskaris was only baiting me, knowing that we both knew that he was the ultimate traitor here.

  He motioned to the guards and my whole heart was screaming within me, Please don’t be Leng! Please don’t be Leng!

  They ripped the cloth off the figure and flung it to the ground.

  It wasn’t Leng fixed to that wooden X. It was Jalla.

  Her head hung limply to the side until one of the guards slapped her awake.

  Had someone nailed her hair to the beams? Her eyes flashed defiantly in the light, but the tiny trickle of sweat at her temple – or was it blood? – gave away how desperate her situation was. I tensed as I watched her, trying not to quake at the thought of how Iskaris would use my words against her.

  How did she get here so quickly? That’s dragon-hard.

  But I’d known that where there was trouble, there would be Jalla. And I knew something else – we needed her alive. No matter how troublesome and entitled and all-out frustrating Jalla was – the Serpent Prince would be worse. My lips tightened as I tried to assess the situation. What could I do to free her?

  “This woman has betrayed our land into the hands of the armies of Baojang,” Iskaris said.

  “Only a friend can betray,” I said, my voice squeaking at the end of my sentence. I needed better control of myself when I was nervous.

  “And Baojang was a friend and an ally. And now she is not. Now, she is tethered to these sticks, like a feast-day goat. And we shall do to her exactly as you suggested, Amel Leafbrought, Dragon Rider of the Purple. We will lower her down from this window on these very sticks so she can watch the results of her treachery and learn with her own eyes what she has done.”

  “You’ll doom us all,” I breathed. This was what he was doing? While his city was attacked? While his soldiers bled and died? He was playing games with Jalla instead of fighting for his life?

  He paused, appearing to consider the question before the eyes behind the mask twinkled and his voice went velvet smooth.

  “Or...”

  “Or what?”

  Every set of lungs in the room froze as we waited for his reply. Every person rose up on toes, head lifted high, eyes fixed on their master.

  “I’m reminded of the words of the Ibrenicus Prophecies,” the Dominar said, tapping a finger to his masked chin as if he could twist the prophecies against me. “‘Healing
comes from the one who pays a steep price.’ Would you like to heal this land, Dragon Rider? And again it says, ‘To stand in the place of the other, to bear the debt of nations, to give up the breath of life to dispel the dust of death.’ There is death in the air tonight. There is one who will pay a price. Will it be this one? Or will it be you in her place?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I STARED AT THE WOODEN X. Iskaris was mad. Raving, insanely mad. But as I watched the Magikas and Castelans in the room watching him, their breath held and their eyes bright, waiting to see what he would do next, I realized that he wasn’t the only one who was crazy.

  It’s infected them. There’s this thing that happens to people when all their hopes are crumbling – it turns them like bad meat. They don’t dare look at their crumbling hopes in case that makes it more real. They can’t force themselves to fix the problem, because underneath it all they know that they have already lost and no amount of climbing will get them out of the hole they have dug for themselves. So, they lean into it. They let themselves be distracted and they throw themselves into insane causes that are so far from their initial goal that it’s almost impossible to draw a line from one thing to the other.

  And now they were waiting to torture and kill either Jalla or me on that wooden X.

  Well, it won’t be you.

  But it couldn’t be Jalla. If it was Jalla, then there was an army in Baojang led by the Serpent Prince, and while Jalla was irritating and arrogant, I had begun to realize that underneath it all she had a set of ethics that governed her. The Serpent Prince had shown me that he was pure danger.

  Raolcan shifted under me.

  I can fly out of here as easily as I flew in. We can just leave.

  But what about Jalla?

  We can save her. We’ll get some allies to help.

  I locked gazes with Jalla and her firm gaze told me that she agreed with Raolcan. And yet ...

  No, ‘and yet!’

  Was that fear I felt in his mind?

  It’s all-out panic. Don’t go crazy on me now, Amel!

  Raolcan shifted, backing toward the window we’d flown in by. The Dominar made a small sign with his two first fingers and thumb of his only hand. Raolcan bucked under me.

  I wasn’t fast enough! They have me pinned in place. Ahlskibi, too. There was a wild note to his thoughts. I shouldn’t have let you think about it! I should have just flown away.

  No. I could see clearly now what was required of me. Iskaris, insane as he was, was right about the prophecy.

  To stand in the place of the other, to bear the debt of nations, to give up the breath of life to dispel the dust of death.

  But he was wrong about the outcome, wasn’t he? The part before was about how badly the north wanted the dragons and how this was the one way to stop that from happening. Besides, what was the dust of death if not the Ifrit scourge? And someone needed to win today – to push back the Ifrits. Below us, our army was doing just that. The dragons were shredding them to pieces beneath us. But it wouldn’t be enough if Baojang lost her leader. It wouldn’t be enough if Jalla died here.

  I could almost see Iskaris’ arrogant expression behind that mask as I took my crutches out and slid down Raolcan’s back.

  Please don’t do this.

  The crowd around us breathed out softly, their expressions anticipatory and greedy. Blood was what they wanted, and blood they would receive.

  This is madness. No one else knows we are here. Ahlskibi is stuck here, too.

  Which meant that no one else could save Jalla. And no one else would know what I was doing as I deftly unfastened the pipe from my belt and offered it to Raolcan. If he took it in his mouth, they couldn’t take it from him. It was utterly essential that no one else had the power to control dragons against their will. It struck me, suddenly, that it always should have been his. After all, he was the Prince of Dragons. He had suffered those trials with me. It belonged to him as much as it did to me.

  Thank you for that acknowledgment.

  Of course.

  He took the Pipe delicately in his huge mouth.

  Now get back in your saddle, you foot-eating fool!

  But I couldn’t do that. If the choice was Jalla or me, I knew who was essential to save the Dominion – to save the whole world from these Ifrits. And it wasn’t a crippled Dragon Rider from a mud hut on the plains.

  Please don’t do this. If you care about saving the world, it’s you who should be here to save it.

  And I appreciated that, but it was Jalla who was needed.

  We’ll find another way. We always do.

  Yes, we always found a way. And this was the way. I remembered what Ephretti said as we watched that smoldering city together. She’d said, ‘Remember what one mistake can do.’ I couldn’t afford any more mistakes.

  I hobbled forward to stand before the dais. I didn’t look back. Now was not the time for tears and if I looked back at his big eyes so full of loyalty to me, I would crumble.

  “I’ll take her place,” I said simply. Who knew? Maybe our army below would conquer this city before he was finished with me. There was still hope that someone – Rakturan perhaps – would arrive in time to save Jalla and keep this war from spiraling out of control.

  You can’t see smiles behind a mask, but I was sure Iskaris was smiling as much as the people on every side of him. Raolcan was right, they were all infected with his insanity.

  And now you are, too.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE MOST SURPRISING part of the whole situation was Jalla. She didn’t say a word – which was strange for her. Was this the princess who never paused even for breath as she spewed out a steady stream of commands? Was this the woman who I’d seen fighting bravely between Ifrits and watching coldly as cities fell? She didn’t seem like the same woman as she silently let them unbind her and shove her to the side. I thought she might be trying to tell me something with her eyes, but if she was, I didn’t hear it.

  She is surprised, and very little surprises Jalla. And she is afraid.

  Didn’t she expect her slaves to die for her?

  Not by choice. That is why she is afraid.

  “Make sure she doesn’t leave the room,” the Dominar ordered. Wise. After all, by the rising noise outside, the battle must have moved into the lower floors of the Castel. All I had to do was stay calm and try not to die before the army reached this level and freed Jalla and Raolcan.

  One day, you will learn I am wiser than you and you will finally listen to me. This is madness!

  That was good. He was still talking like I had a future. He needed that hope. I swallowed back the hitch in my throat as the Dominar’s guards grabbed me roughly, shaking my second crutch away in their haste. They didn’t bother to unstrap the other one and it bounced along the stone floor as they hauled me to the wooden beams and shoved me roughly against them.

  I could feel the blood draining from my face as my body processed what was happening quicker than my mind could. Already my belly was churning, and a sour taste was in the back of my throat. Please don’t throw up, Amel. It would be so undignified. A bubbling sound in my belly made me fear even worse consequences as they cinched leather straps tightly around my wrists and ankles and through a slit in the beams, tightening and tying them on the other side. I was firmly fixed in place.

  Sweat stung my eyes and I blinked it away.

  I unfocused my eyes so that no one would notice me watching Jalla, edge step by step, behind the watchers and slowly climb onto Roalcan. He wouldn’t mind that. He’d always had a soft spot for her.

  Not today. Not when you choose to take her place.

  He sounded raw in my mind. Like he couldn’t bear this, but he would bear up under it just fine. He was always a survivor.

  Not without you. You know that.

  If Savette could survive without her dragon, then Raolcan could survive without his rider. He would need to find Shonan and ask him to help – or perhaps his mother could help. Or
even the Troglodytes. He carried their talisman now. They would have to listen.

  You are gambling both our lives on this!

  But if I hadn’t then we could have lost Jalla. And Raolcan should know as well as I did that we couldn’t win a battle in this room full of magic, and Iskaris would not have let us leave without one.

  The guards – ten of them – gathered around the crossbeams and with one great heave, lifted the beams with me strapped to them up into the air. I gritted my teeth, holding tight to my mind to keep it from skittering away in fear.

  I knew the trick of this. Concentrate on little details. Concentrate on the ceiling. Someone had taken a lot of care with the wooden beams, painting them white and carefully carving them in designs and swirls.

  A little dust fell from the ceiling.

  “Fasten the rope tightly,” Iskaris called from behind me. I felt someone working to tie ropes through loops at the top of the beams. What had this thing been for before they made it into this instrument of terror?

  I think it held lanterns from the ceiling above the audience chamber. It should not be holding you!

  A strip of the ceiling seemed to rip free, torn upward. Was I imagining things? The window was close ... so close now that I could smell the battle beyond the window.

  “Heave her over!” Iskaris called. “Let all the city see their traitor!”

  The ceiling above me peeled away suddenly, as if someone had ripped it up with a massive hand full of claws. Wood beams shredded into splinters raining down on me. Was I the only one seeing this? Was the I the only one watching as light poured in through the rent ceiling and a massive white hand ripped beams and white plaster to widen the gash? The guards carrying me were steps from the window.

  No wonder I was seeing things.

  No wonder I was going crazy.

  The murmurs of the crowd still carried the same tone. I watched the ceiling like a person in a dream, not sure what I was seeing as the dust of the floor above us fell down, stinging my eyes and scattering over the crowd and then, through the glittering beams of dust, a huge white head plunged through the ceiling and burped a stinking cloud of sulfur onto the crowd below.